A considerable expense in the construction industry is the labor expense of erecting a building structure at a building site. The faster such construction takes place, the lower will be the overall cost of the project. Weather delays, and the like, frequently wreck enormous cost overruns to constructions projects. Consequently, there has been a demand in recent years for pre-assembled and easily-assembled building structures. Moreover, there has been a demand for low-cost, easily transported structures.
To help meet this demand, building "kits"are available for building relatively simple homes and other structures from pre-fabricated wall sections and step-by-step assembly instructions. Building kits are still relatively complicated to assemble, expensive, and take a considerable time to build. Pre-built rooms, complete with roof, are available to be trucked to the site and joined with other building sections to form a complete residence or other structure. Such pre-built rooms are difficult to transport and are also relatively expensive. Precast concrete panels are also available, and are typically transported by rail or truck to the site and tilted-up and fastened into place. Such concrete panels are extremely heavy and difficult to work with, are limited to monotonous forms, and are also expensive. Even inflatable and tent-like structures are available, but while extremely fast to erect they provide less effective shelter and are not generally considered permanent. All of these types of building elements and methods have considerable drawbacks associated with their use.
Clearly, then, there still remains a need for an easily transported and assembled building structure that can be readily assembled with a minimum amount of labor and in a relatively short period of time. Such a needed invention would be light weight, inexpensive to manufacture, and provide sturdy, permanent shelter. Such a needed invention would further be configurable in a variety ways to meet varying needs, and would provide several add-on modules for further customization and utility. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides further related advantages.